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Google: Do No Evil.

 One response to yesterday's article was simple, direct, and to the point...

"Not an article, just a bitter fantasy story."

I will admit the article was a little heavy on the sarcasm. and more than a little tounge-in-cheek.

But so is most satire.

You see, when a companies' mantra is "Do no evil", you tend to hold them a slightly higher standard.

When a companies' mantra is "Do no evil" and they do one of the things mentioned, but have a good reason, you tend to accept them at their word and let it slide.

But when they do similar things again, and again, and again, and again?

There's a line in Serenity when Zoe says, Sir, I don't disagree on any particular point. But..."

One has to ask just what's going on.

Did Google joined with Verizon on issuing a policy proposal that was criticized by some bloggers and journalists as damaging to net neutrality? Yes.

Is Davlik a "clean room" implementation of Java, or did they in fact strip out the headers, change some code, and publish it as their own? Oracle certainly seems to have a few problems with them.

Are they withholding the Honeycomb "open" source? They dance around the issue, and one can't argue too much with many of their reasons, but... a project is either "open", or it's not.

Did they pull Grooveshark from their free and unrestricted marketplace? Yes. And are they doing their own service? Rumor mill also says yes.

Will it be ad based? Does a bear...

Google shouts "open", "open", "open" all day long, but is Gmail or the bundled Android apps or their search technology open? No.

So. Add all of that up, and from my perspective, it seems that Google is in fact dedicated to "open source"....

For as long as it suits their purposes.

And that, in turn, they will no no evil...

For as long as it suits their purposes.

 

Hi! We're Google and we're pretty not evil.

Hi. we're Google, and we're totally dedicated to the concept of free and open source software. Well, pretty dedicated. 

Okay, we're dedicated, just as long as it suits our purposes.

And the purposes of the carriers who put an old version of our OS on their locked-down phones.

I mean, yes, you know and I know that you can hack them and download an update and probably get it to work. Only takes a couple of hours.

But hey, it's not like you get an Android free phone for free. Carriers have to make money too. And allowing them to lock down our free software is what makes our free software truly free!

You see, all software should be free and open and unrestricted, like the software in the Android Marketplace. It's our store, and it's dedicated to that fact. 

Unless someone complains about an app, of course. I mean, yeah, if the record labels had complaints, they should have taken them up with Grooveshark and not us. But since they did... okay. Gone. Zap.

But don't worry, 'cause we have our own service we'll be introducing soon. And it's going to be free! Really free! Totally free.

What? Of course there will be ads. Lots of them.

But they'll be personalized ads that you're going to want to see, all based upon our detailed records of your search and browser history. Well, those records, and the contents of your Gmail account... and then there's Google Docs... and, ah... 

Never mind.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Free and open. Like I was saying, all software should be free and open for anyone to change and inspect and...

What? Our software? Gmail and Maps and our search technology? Hell no! That's our software, with all of our proprietary concepts and ideas. 

To make it open would be to let just anyone use it however they wanted! I mean, people could use it to compete with us!

Just look at the Java JVM for Pete's sake! Oracle left the source to that open, and what happened? Someone just walked in and stole the whole thing! That's right. They changed just enough to pass a probable copyright suit and... What? We did that? 

Never mind. 

The point is, that other software, the open source software, that stuff should be open. It should be free and open for anyone to change and inspect and use how they wish. We need to trust our users to do the right thing. And our users need to be able to trust us.

Manufacturers, however, are sneaky bastards, and can't be trusted at all. That's why we're withholding the Honeycomb source from our trusted users and partners and manufacturers.

You'll just screw it up, and then everyone will blame us.

It's for your own good really. 

Trust us.

Besides, we promise to make it open again. Someday. Soon. Real soon. Scout's Honor. 

We're Google and we're not evil. 

Well, pretty not evil, at least.

So. Now that that's settled.. want to see some ads?

[Read More: Google - Do No Evil] 

[via Mashable]

Google's Crackdown On Android Partners Is Needed... And A Mistake.

According to Bloomberg, Google is cracking down on fragmentation.

Android partners will soon need to have plans pre-approved by Google. If they don't, Google will block access to updated versions of their "open" source Android software, prevent inclusion of standard Google apps like Gmail and Maps, and exclude them from the Android Marketplace.

By doing so, Google is looking to "encourage" better hardware standardization, and to minimize the number and types of changes manufacturers can make to the Android source code itself.

Why?

To cut down on Android device "fragmentation", and to prevent manufacturers from shipping products that might reflect badly on the Android platform.

All laudable goals. And, truth be told, probably needed. But the very idea of Android "standardization" could backfire.

Badly.

We have precedent for this, because Microsoft did the same thing with Windows, dictating ever stricter hardware standards and forbidding OS changes (though you were apparently free to install as much bloatware as you liked).

And the result?

Hardware among vendors was effectively identical. The software was identical. And manufacturers well left with little to differentiate a Dell PC from an HP PC from an Acer PC. Change the beige plastic to black plastic? Add some trim? Dell and Gateway tried to make a go of it via the customization route, but faced increased competition from manufacturers who were left with just a single weapon in their toolkit.

What happens when dozens of companies are producing identical products? You end up with a commodity. And how are commodities traded and sold?

On price.

And so manufacturers did the only thing they could do: undercut each other on price, to the point where PC profit margins were things best measured in dimes, not dollars.

I predict the same thing happening to Android.

With no significant differentiation, the majority of Android devices will end up being heavily discounted, or even given away as loss leaders by carriers and others attempting to lock subscribers into subscription plans. (Think Verizon and Amazon and even the New York Times.)

But look at it this way. Finally, Android will be "free".

Google's H.264 Double Standard

Google just announced that they're dropping support for the H.264 video codec in their Chrome browser.

Instead they will support WebM, Google’s recently introduced open-source, royalty-free codec. They're also going to support Theora, another open compression technology that no one uses.

Is it just me, or is this a clear double-standard? Google states that they're dropping H.264 in order to support more "open" technologies. Okay, fine. But why, then, are they supporting a proprietary technology (Flash) on their Android devices?

There, and I quote, they say it's because people should be "free to choose".

Sorry, but Google needs to do a dictionary search on their own web site. The word is "hypocrite".

[All Things Digital]

Google's GMail Hard on the Heels of .Mac

In related technology news, Google just announced new GMail features, including improved performance, a new contact manager, and better integration with their online applications.

This on the heels of enabling free IMAP for all GMail accounts, and providing IMAP support for the iPhone.